herself
gaily: "At the discussion, of course. And so we're dreadfully anxious to
know just how it was that you went into the Xingu."

There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable dangers
that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips, like
soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their
leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying
sharply: "Ah--you say THE Xingu, do you?"

Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. "It IS a shade pedantic, isn't it?
Personally, I always drop the article; but I don't know how the other
members feel about it."

The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed
with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a
bright glance about the group, went on: "They probably think, as I do,
that nothing really matters except the thing itself--except Xingu."

No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger
gathered courage to say: "Surely every one must feel that about Xingu."

Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and Laura
Glyde breathed emotionally: "I have known cases where it has changed a
whole life."

"It has done me worlds of good," Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming
to herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the
winter before.

"Of course," Mrs. Roby admitted, "the difficulty is that one must give
up so much time to it. It's very long."

"I can't imagine," said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, "grudging the time given
to such a subject."

"And deep in places," Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) "And
it isn't easy to skip."

"I never skip," said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically.

"Ah, it's dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places
where one can't. One must just wade through."

"I should hardly call it WADING," said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically.

Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. "Ah--you always found it went
swimmingly?"

Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. "Of course there are difficult passages," she
conceded modestly.

"Yes; some are not at all clear--even," Mrs. Roby added, "if one is
familiar with the original."

"As I suppose you are?" Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with
a look of challenge.

Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. "Oh, it's really not difficult
up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little
known, and it's almost impossible to get at